11/3/2024                         Word Count –  1,104                                     Reading Time – 5 minutes

There are plenty of disturbing things in the Bible. It seems that the road to salvation is not always a primrose lane. For me, the process of getting comfortable with some of the Bible’s stories is a wrestling match. I am currently grappling with the story of Jephthah’s Vow.

Jephthah was a leader of the Israelites during a portion of their acquisition of the Promised Land.   Jephthah was apparently particularly vexed by the prospect of confronting the Ammon people. So much so that he made a vow to God that if God would deliver the people of Ammon into his hands then “whatever comes out of the doors of my (Jephthah’s) house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will off er it up as a burnt offering “. (Judges 11:30-31).

God delivered the Ammon people into Jephthah’s hands and the first thing that came out of his house was his beloved daughter. His only child. Despite being inconsolably distraught and consumed by regret and sorrow, Jephthah carried out the grizzly deed as promised.

I struggle mightily with that concept. But as nonplussed as I am with Jephthah setting his daughter on fire I am equally amazed at her. When Jephthah told her of his vow to God and the subsequent victory for the entire Israeli nation that necessitated his following through with his commitment, her response was that he had no other choice than to follow through with his vow. She requested a couple of months to prepare herself and then submitted. I also struggle with wrapping my head around that level of unselfishness.

My first question is what was Jephthah thinking when he came up with that vow? I don’t know what kind of stuff Jephthah had wandering around in his house, but it should have occurred to him that anything that emerged would probably be something of high value to him. I can only surmise that this victory over the Ammons was of such immense importance to the well-being of Israel that Jephthah was willing to make any sacrifice to secure it. But I expect he was hoping it would be his pet goat or a bottom tier servant who was first to greet him.

I also struggle with God’s lack of intervention in this. We have a similar situation to the story of Abraham and Isaac. God instructed Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. But, at the last minute God stepped in to stop Abraham from slaying Isaac. Why didn’t God show the same mercy to Jephthah and his daughter? I am certain that in this lifetime I will never have sufficient insight to understand God’s reasoning. Nor should I. But I can’t help speculating that one explanation might be that Isaac was to play such a massive role in the development of Israel as the nation of God’s chosen people, which in turn, played a massive role in providing the genetic pathway for the coming of Christ the Messiah, who is the sole means for the spiritual salvation of the world, that God needed to preserve his life. God had to put Abraham’s faith to the ultimate test, but He also needed to preserve Isaac to fulfill His plan.

I often feel that our experiences of life are much like the interactions we have on the computer screen. We see what is on the screen and understand it to varying degrees, but on the backside of the program there is all this code that we don’t see. And this code is being supported by all these spinning and whirling, buzzing and bouncing molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks and who know what else, that are guided by forces that we cannot clearly define or even begin to understand completely. But God understands, because He made all this stuff and a whole bunch more, He not only made the atoms and all that is in them, but all the laws that govern their behavior as well, and the environment in which they exist. I think real life is like that and I’m ok with not understanding all of it.

In considering why God spared Isaac and not Jephthah’s daughter, we don’t really know the importance of such a sacrifice in God’s economy. God created the physical world, and the material realm is His kingdom. But it is not His only kingdom. God is Spirit. There is a spiritual realm that is His kingdom as well. It seems to me that things are probably different in the spiritual realm than they are in the physical realm.

The absence of matter in the spiritual realm could make for a much different dynamic. Without having to cope with the constraints of solid matter and physical beings our spirits may have more leeway in how we manifest our individual personalities. Additionally, spirits as entities would be subject to different consequences of action compared to physical beings. Plus, the durability of the spirit, the idea of eternal existence, adds additional nuance to the contemplation of the impacts of spiritual activities and behavior. As such, it may be impossible to know the true spiritual results of Jephthah’s and his daughter’s actions.

To me, the story of Jephtha, and many other stories in the Bible, provide the opportunity to challenge our belief systems and think a little more deeply about our perspectives. Faith is not necessarily easy, and the consequences of the struggle between good and evil are not pleasant to experience or witness. Thankfully, God provides us with plenty of beauty to balance out the ugly. Philippians: 4:8 admonishes us to meditate on whatever things are true, noble, just, pure, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy.

I think this is an important strategy because we are continually confronted with a myriad of things that are not so. An, as we see with the story of Jephthah, even things with good outcomes are sometimes hard to look at. It seems though that along with the strategy of meditating on the good and just and virtuous things we must maintain an understanding that all things may not be as they seem on first glance. There may, on the surface, be some evil things are beautiful and some good things appear ugly.

As we observe the world around us and integrate our observations into our world view it is incumbent upon us to look beneath the surface as much as possible to discern good from evil. As we do so we need to be ready for a few wrestling matches along the way.